GUIDED BY VOICES
Under the Bushes, Under the Stars
(Matador) ***
I'm worried about Guided by Voices. Though most bands have years to develop their talent and experiment with new styles, the members of Guided by Voices are rapidly approaching retirement age; their time as American pop star laureates might be running out. While Under the Bushes, Under the Stars is a stellar recording, it ultimately falls short of the band's earlier triumphs, Bee Thousand and Alien Lanes.
Still, it's almost impossible to judge a band that claims, "Don't take this so seriously / You just have to hum it all day long," as GbV singer/songwriter/guru Robert Pollard croons on "The Official Ironman Rally Song." But Pollard seems to miss his own point. GbV's spontaneous approach to songwriting and recording-an utter denial of seriousness-was the source of their charm, yet Bushes is the most calculated GbV album to date. What made Bee Thousand practically revolutionary was that it avoided the superfluous aspects of rock music that less worthy bands depend on. As a group of scruffy, unattractive men in their 40's, GbV proved that one of the central focuses of rock-image-doesn't have to matter. (Try telling that to Oasis...) And as stable, middle-class family men, they showed that rock doesn't need to dwell on its traditional subject matter-sex. They succeeded by refining and retaining the only necessary element: beautiful and well-crafted songs.
Both Alien Lanes and Bee Thousand reflected a sense of urgency, as if Pollard insisted his songs had to get out as quickly as possible because the hooks had expiration dates. On Bushes the hooks are still present, but most have gone a bit stale. Thankfully, GbV's secret weapon, Tobin Sprout, picks up the slack, contributing four songs. Nevertheless, Bushes suffers from an identity crisis, production-wise. After initially recording in Easley Studios with Kim Deal, and in Chicago with Steve Albini (enigmatically dubbed "Fluss" in the liner notes), the band re-recorded most of the material in Dayton, fearing the production was too slick.
But the new approach (witnessed on the few Albini/Deal tracks that survived) actually works. "Don't Stop Now" was resurrected from the "LP of unreleased tracks" (read: throwaways) included with the GbV box set called King Shit and the Golden Boys. While the original version was bland and clumsily recorded, the new version's crescendo of guitars beefs up the song's anthemic quality. Pollard's uncanny musical sense is refined on "Drag Days", a song as irresistible as "Tractor Rape Chain" and "Motor Away."
Perhaps I am taking the album too seriously. After all, Pollard has succeeded in his goal-I'll be humming his songs all day long. I don't have much of a choice.
-Josh Westlund
Copyright 1996, The Yale Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.
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